Exciting new design

I've already got next year's tee shirt designed. Part of me is hoping this will make more people want to come out for football cheer. Another part of me is hoping that alumni and non-cheerleaders, and maybe even parents will like these enough to buy some and help make money for us. Like it? Let me know your size and if you want me to plan on ordering one for you. I'll take orders officially next August.

From the 2 or 3 comments I've gotten on facebook, it seems to be going over pretty well!

Miss congeniality

    "The spirit stick got its start at a camp at the University of Redlands in California. We had a squad out there who cheered for the other groups and were full of spirit, but they had almost no talent. So, I decided they had to have some recognition because their great attitude was just as important as skill! I broke a little stick off a tree and awarded them the 'spirit stick' for their unusual spirit. Then we started doing this at all the camps, awarding the spirit stick to the groups who showed the most spirit each day, and whoever won it at the end of the week got to take it home with them. The spirit stick is the most outstanding award you can get. It's the symbol for spirit." ~Lawrence Herkimer

Awarding a spirit stick is not so much about skills and conditioning as it is about... well, SPIRIT.

There might be people who are better cheerleaders in that their moves are more accurate or more sharp, or they may be capable of more stunts or tumbling, or they may know more chants- but the spirit-stick recipient is the person who perhaps has the most positive attitude, the most supportive of their squad-mates, attempts the most direct crowd-encouragement, or if nothing else, they put forth the most effort (remember the formula e/a= s effort divided by ability equals success). So yes, it occasionally might go to someone who shows the most improvement. It's also important to remember that if you're not getting the spirit stick, that doesn't mean you aren't doing an awesome job.

Here are some of the qualities I will be looking for each game-

First, from our mission statement:
Positive, Committed Leaders stirring-up spirit, building excellence & character

    * Who remains positive the whole game?
    * Who demonstrates the most commitment?
    * Shows leadership (managing, facilitating and setting an example- not JUST directing)
    * Stirs-up school spirit (in crowd, team, and within the squad)
    * Strives to improve
    * and has personal integrity, principles and character


Those are pretty subjective, I admit, I can't see into your soul, after all, so I look for what's a lot easier to see. Things like:

    * School Spirit
    * Sportsmanship
    * Energy
    * Expression
    * Encouraging/supportive

And, I hope you'll read the posts I make about John Wooden's Pyramid of Success, because some of his"bricks" also embody the meaning of the spirit stick:

    * Friendship
    * Loyalty
    * Cooperation
    * Enthusiasm
    * Self-Control
    * Team Spirit

I will be awarding our spirit stick on a weekly basis. Winners will receive it each Monday and are responsible for returning it the following Friday before the game. They're also responsible (of course) for not letting it touch the ground. That's not actually about bad luck- it's symbolic of the fact that you should always keep your spirit up!

Yes, I welcome your input, but no, it's not a democracy, it's definitely a coach-ocracy. I want to hear who you all think deserves it. I especially want to hear from past recipients, but I do reserve the final word.

I don't believe that the NCA founder and inventor of the "Herkie" jump meant for the spirit stick to be a mere consolation prize. I think he'd agree that being positive, having good sportsmanship, and encouraging others is more important in cheerleading than impressive stunts, choreographed routines, or sharp moves and jumps.

Quincy's Angels

The following story ran in the Thursday, December 10, 2009 Dunlap Reporter

Boyer Valley freshman Quincy Baker has a lot of school spirit. He's really wanted to participate in school activities and be a part of a team just like his older brother, Senior Colton Baker. But Quincy is a special needs student with a lot of limitations. It isn't always easy for him to communicate, he's endured hundreds of surgeries in his short lifetime and because he's so slim, a lot of people assume that he's more frail than he is.

For a long time it looked like school sports was just out of the question. But part way through football season last fall, Quincy had three "angels" intervene for him. Senior Football Cheerleaders Sasha Meggers, Meckensie Jensen and Christine Harriott realized that Quincy's school spirit could be put to good use. All three girls had served at different times as helpers or baby sitters for "Q" as they call him. Sasha was practically a sister to him, having grown up as next door neighbors with the Bakers in Dow City.

The three Seniors talked to their Coach, Ted Mallory, and Quincy's Mom, Paula Ritterbush Eickholt and the next thing he knew, Quincy was part of the squad. Meggers, Jensen, and Harriott had been cheering for Boyer Valley since the seventh grade, so Quincy's been exposed to every cheer they have and the girls had often taught them to him. They joke about being his girlfriends, but whenever he se's a photograph of any of the three girls in a yearbook or on Coach Mallory's desk, he lights up and points to his squad-mates.

Qunicy cheered at home football games in 2009. He plans on cheering at home basketball games this year too, although because of the inherent danger of balls, players and referees, he will be in the stands directly beside the squad. At the season opener in Missouri Valley, on of the cheerleaders was actually hit in the head with a ball. Coach Mallory frequently has to dodge colissions and crashes when he takes pictures for the yearbook and the Reporter.

Quincy's three angels have moved on from cheerleading. Harriott will graduate at semester, Jensen is putting more hours in at her job in Soldier and Meggers has been focusing on being Captain of the Boyer Valley Drill Squad- which just brought home their fifth first place State rating for pom in a row. Even though they're moving on, the girls still have plans for Quincy. They want to take him to his first prom.

This year's basketball Cheer squad features four Sophomores, two Freshmen and a Junior. Only Sophomore Cammey Hast has cheer in high school before, though another four have cheered in junior high. Mallory has been impressed with their energy, enthusiasm and initiative at practices.

"If they can push past their stage fright," he says "they will be incredibly effective at raising spirit at games." He thinks they've got a lot of skill and have a ton of potential.

Mallory has coached both middle school and high school cheer at Boyer Valley since 2001. Before moving to Iowa, he coached at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High School in Sylmar, California. He lives in Charter Oak with his wife Bethany and their three daughters.

School Fight Song.

Tonight our small, but mighty pep-band played an awesome version of the Boyer Valley fight song.
Unfortunately, the cheer squad was late getting back from offering hospitality to the Logan cheerleaders- it wasn't their fault and I wasn't angry with them about it. But something did happened that was just striking, I mean it amazed me so I wanted to tell as many students as I could about it.

On our side of the stands every single adult, 20's thru 80's were all standing up. 3/4 of the stands, it was moving. They were proud and they were clapping to the beat. It was incredible.

The other 1/4 of the stands? Not a single student stood. None. It was weird, like an episode of the Twilight zone. Now, I'm not angry about it or blaming anyone. I genuinely think that all our kids are simply clueless. But I don't think they had any idea how rude and sad and strange it was that they were all just sitting there talking or texting on their phones as if nothing were happening.

As the cheerleading coach, I feel like I've failed you. You guys, this may seem like no big deal, but it is a big deal. You don't talk while someone else is praying, you don't leave your hat on at a funeral, you stand up during the National Anthem, and you know what? You stand up when YOU school fight song or alma mater is played. If you don't know the words, fine- who really sings along to the National Anthem either, but at least, at the VERY least, you stand up. Its just what you do. It's like not talking with your mouth full or not farting at the opera. It shows that you care about yourself and take pride in yourself. It shows respect for tradition and for the community. Maybe you think it's a "one-horse town" and you can't wait to get outta here, but while you're here, show some class, show some pride in yourselves. Show visiting schools that you are glad your Bulldogs.

Mrs. Staley prints the words in the programs of every basketball game. So you don't HAVE to really learn them. But come on, if these are really the best years of your lives, and your classmates are your best friends, if you have any school spirit or self-respect at all, please rise when our own personal mini-national anthem is played. Our tiny little band can REALLY belt it out.

Just in case you want to print them out, write them down, copy and paste them to your MySpace & FaceBook pages or actually LEARN the lyrics, here they are:

Onward Bulldogs, Onward Bulldogs
Fight on for your fame.
Run the ball right down the court
And a victory's sure this game.
Rah, Rah, Rah!
Onward Bulldogs, Onward Bulldogs
Fight on for your fame.
Fight bulldogs, Fight and you will win this game!


And if you think that school pride is important, teach your friends or even forward on this email.

Be true to your school,
Coach Mallory

Thanks, I needed that

Thanks, I needed that
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig LEADER, Thurs. June 1, 2006

It's not always easy to remain positive, the way cheerleaders are supposed to, but that's why we have cheerleaders- to help us (& each other) to think positive.

Last night I stayed at school to work on finishing the yearbook and to save money on gas, since we had the Spring awards banquet. I was feeling sorry for myself 1) that the yearbook staff had left so much for me to do and 2) that I wouldn't get to see my own kids that night. I thought I'd wait till just before the banquet to go because I'm not very comfortable in social situations, so it's awkward to try to make small-talk any longer than I have to.

Naturally my truck wouldn't start. I looked under the hood aimlessly, as if by looking at something I know nothing about would miraculously solve the problem. We used to have an old car that you sometimes needed to tap on the distributor cap to get it to start. That worked magically every single time you did it. My truck didn't seem to have a distributor cap.

I followed the cables from the battery to the spark plugs. I knew it wasn't the battery because it turned over fine, it just didn't start. I fiddled with the spark plugs, as if maybe that would help just like tapping on the distributor of that old Buick used to. Nothing. The guys at the garage had assured me that the plugs were fine.

There had been two or three mornings when it wouldn't start so I asked them to look when I had had it in for an oil change. They said that the plugs were too new, they had given it a tune up just last year. They said that it started up every time for them, but from my explanation it sounded like a fuel filter or fuel injector.

Trying to get it to start once more so I could make it to the awards banquet, I hoped it was just the fuel filter, not the fuel pump or the injector. I had bought a bottle of fuel injector cleaner the last time I got gas, I put it in the tank and followed it up with some unleaded that I had in the gas can that I keep in the back for the lawn mower. Nothing. The next day my farmer-in-law reminded me that if it were a fuel filter it would start to cut out whenever I'd try to accelerate. Never had, just didn't want to start.

I tried again. Nothing. I looked under the hood again, still not knowing what to look for. I wanted to find the choke. That always works, I told myself. Of course I had no idea where the choke was- somewhere below the steering column down by this side of where the throttle is inside I reasoned. No, nope. Hmmm, is it on top of the engine block somewhere? Oh, who was I kidding? Even if I knew where it was, there's always two guys whenever guys pull that trick. One inside to gun the gas and another under the hood to pull on the choke.

Dang, why didn't I take Engines or Auto Shop in high school? Noooo, I had to take stupid Drafting. Like I ever use that? When was the last time I ever drew a 3-D schematic for some machine-tooled part? Dumb guidance counselor.

Finally I called my wife to ask for a ride after the banquet. The next day, if he'd gotten his crop in, I'm sure my beloved farmer-in-law and/or his mechanic neighbor could come look at it and at least help me get it to the guys at the garage. I started walking to the banquet.

I was relieved that I hadn't missed the meal. I was the very last person in line behind all the parents. I took the very last seat at the coaches and teacher's table. I don't know if I'm losing my hearing or if it was just the din of the crowd, but I had a tough time hearing any of the conversations at the table, which made polite small talk even harder.

Plenty of chummy humor between the Athletic Director who Emceed and the other ball-sport coached, who were sitting on the opposite end of our two or three tables. I never really fit in with all the jocks when I was in school either. At least the sports editors on the school paper were pretty nice to me. Maybe that's why I work so hard to actually coach and not just be one of those lazy sponsors who never even attends any games with their cheer squads. Maybe I'm overcompensating or trying to prove something to somebody. Whatever.

Yadda yadda yadda, scholarships, music, band, science, blah blah blah, etc. etc. Not that that's bad, all the presenters were great, all the kids deserve recognition, it's just that no one ever enjoys these things do they? I don't even like the Oscars that much. At least at the Country music awards you get to hear bands play. Dang it, Coach, why do you make me second to last? I just want to get it over with. I'll never be able to say anything as clever and insider as you football, basketball, baseball and golf guys... okay here we go.

Geez, how come I have no trouble at all talking in front of people all day long, but this freaks me out? Maybe because that's 10-20 kids at a time in a classroom and this is more than half the kids in school, plus most of my colleagues and administrators, plus all those kids parents all at once.

So I get it done. I feel bad because I fell like I made it sound like I didn't appreciate or don't like the football cheerleaders, but at the same time I don't feel like I did a good enough job of letting the basketball cheerleaders know how much I appreciated them or what an outstanding job they did. But, I didn't stutter or get any name wrong and I was brief- which is what most people want anyway. And when I got back to my table the History and Science teachers said they liked my joke, although they were the only two who got it.

Needless to say, it had been a rough night. I walked back to school Bethany wasn't there to pick me up yet, but there were post-it notes all over my windshield. It was the junior high cheerleaders. They'd been to Adventureland with the junior high choir. “We luv U Coach,” “#1 Cheer Coach,” “Go Bulldogs,” and “We will miss you!”

They didn’t realize it, but they had done what cheerleaders are supposed to do, even on the last day of school. They gave me a lift and reminded me to be positive. Thanks girls.

Ten things every dad should know about eating disorders

It’s Lent. Once again I’ve sworn to eat less and take better care of myself. I even switched to decaf at school. I don’t know anything harder than not snacking between meals. I love food. Sometimes I wonder if I am to food the way that an alcoholic is to beer.

My own perennial battle of the bulge has gotten me thinking about how high school students cope with body image and the pressure to be thin.

As many readers know, I teach at Boyer Valley high school in Dunlap and I’ve also coached cheerleading for more than 10 years. In all that time, there may have been girls who struggled with eating disorders, but I was unaware of it. This year several kids have joked, threatened, talked about as if it were a viable option, and even bragged about either starving themselves (anorexia) or making themselves throw-up (bulimia).

Fortunately, it’s often not genuine. Either it’s a plea for attention, a typically teenage penchant for melodrama, or a sad but not serious way to whine about their weight. When girls really do succumb to these disorders, there are hospitalization programs and counseling.

But as a father of three young girls, I became very concerned. What will it be like for them when they get to junior high and high school? So I did a little research and want to share ten things every dad should know about eating disorders. These are just as important for moms and grandparents too.

1. Did you realize that our body size is pretty much a given, just like our height or hair color? In spite of that, by junior high 30-50% of American girls say they feel too fat and 20-40% are already dieting before they’re even 10 years old. By high school, 40-60% of girls feel overweight and try to lose.

2. As someone who grew up under a fear that the Soviet Union would bomb us into nuclear winter, this one surprised me; many girls say that they are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of cancer, nuclear war, or even losing their parents.

3. The fashion models weigh 23% less than the average woman.

4. Most people who develop eating disorders, start during adolescence. While self-esteem for both girls and boys is strong as children and drops for both in adolescence, the drop is much steeper for girls, beginning around age of 12.

5. In a survey of working-class 5th to 12th grade suburban girls, nearly 70% percent reported that magazine pictures influence their idea of the perfect body; 47% reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures.

6. Before puberty there’s no difference in depression rates between boys and girls. By age 15, girls are twice as likely to be depressed and 10 times as likely to develop an eating disorder than boys. Girls are more likely to attempt suicide than boys are, although boys are more likely to succeed.

7. Clinique Laboratories, Inc. surveyed 500 moms of teen daughters and found their number one New Year’s Resolutions was "lose weight/eat less". Yet 22% of these same mothers list the fear of their daughter developing an eating disorder among their top concerns. Only 16% of the 500 teens in the same survey worried about developing an eating disorder.

8. Anecdotal evidence suggests that comments from male family members trigger dieting, and teasing is associated with weight-control attempts in adolescence. I can’t imagine making fun of my girls for being fat or calling them names, but there are parents that do just that. Maybe they do it because they’re worried about them and hope to motivate them to eat less, but what it does is hurt them deeply.

9. According to data presented to the National Institutes of Health, 33-40% of adult women are trying to lose weight at any given time –fueled by a cultural perception of a feminine "ideal" that is actually much too thin for good health.

10. And finally, we dads are important. Statistics show that girls with dads who spend time with them and really try to be part of their lives are more ambitious, more successful in school, attend college more frequently, and are more likely to attain careers of their own. They also are less dependent, more self-protective, and less likely to date or marry abusive partners.

You can find out more from the International Eating Disorder Referral Organization. www.EDReferral.com

High School Sports; you can’t please everyone

Wow. I never knew that coaching cheer could be this fun or this easy. I’m scared. I’m waiting for the shoe to drop. Maybe it won’t, maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe God has granted me this season’s new squad because He feels like I paid my dues last season.

The mom of one candidate who didn’t make it back on now “hates” me and her daughter is never allowed to go out for cheer again. Nor is she allowed to become mascot ( I BEGGED her to, but she’s on Drill squad and thought that she’d be gross and sweaty when it was time to perform with Drill, and I suppose she’s right.)

It makes me sad. I really love that kid and was rooting for her to make it back on, but she really needs to work on her grades anyway.
I appreciated this kid so much. Not just because of her awesome flips and tumbling, but because she was our glue. Our stabalizing element. She’s the one who ran after people who stormed off and wanted to quit. She’s the one person of the twelve who never went negative, who never felt sorry for herself and never complained. Even when she lost her Grandpa. She’s steady and she leads both by directing people and by example. And even though she’s a natural born flyer, she didn’t hog the glory but became an outstanding base too.

Be that all as it may, our candidates had to have teacher reccomendation forms and then they had to perform in front of a panel of six judges. I also figured student’s grade point averages into a points total.

Another mom chewed me out on the phone the other day for nearly 40 minutes. Her daughter and decided not to come back out (maybe she sized up the competition and saw the writing on the wall) she asked if she could help with JrHi cheer on the days she doesn’t have Weight Lifting- who knows, maybe she could improve and tryout again next season. She’s only a Freshman so she’ll have six more opportunities- besides many of this season’s cheerleaders plan on playing volleyball rather than cheering next Fall. On top of that, she had surgery to have her wisdom teeth out just before tryouts and had some bad reactions to her pain-killers, so she was really in no condition to tryout even if she had wanted to.

Now her mom is angry with me for not rescheduling tryouts. The girl was still a mess a week after tryouts. Our first game is Dec 3, I wish I could have had tryouts a month earlier- we’re going to be pushing it to be ready as it is.

I like this kid too. She told me that coming out for cheerleading was a life-altering decision that she made. I hope she still feels like that’s true. No one would have ever thought that she would come out for cheer, they assume that she’s brooding and sardonic and critical of perky people. And that’s some of what drove her. She wanted to prove her critics wrong. While I still think she’s too hard on herself, she made it. By the last game, she knew most of the chants and kept up, she even went up as a flyer in a half-extension mount.

Now, her mom’s scared to death that her kid is going to be up to no good every Friday night and she banked on her getting back on squad when she registered for a class every Friday.

Last week this girl was in tears in my room because her mom was so angry at her for not being a cheerleader anymore. Do you know how awkward it is to want to honor and respect the parent, but have their child come to you for comfort or solice because their relationship with their parent is so strained? Yikes. All I could do was try to reassure her that everybody goes through this kind of thing when they separate from their parents’ orbit durring adolescence.

But back to THIS season’s squad. Holy Cow! They learn so fast. They have so much energy and enthusiasm. They’re so sharp. They’re so coachable and cooperative. They get along with each other and there’s no DRAMA! No crying, no kussing, no tantrums. They want to workout durring conditioning. They don’t cut corners, they don’t whine.

We have two Freshmen, two Sophomores and two Juniors. The of the six are also on Drill Squad, so they have experience with “cheerleadery things” like jumps and 8-counts. Wow. Thank you Jesus!

But, kids are kids and parents are parents, so I’m sure that there will eventually be some drama. The other night in practice one of them challenged me because they didn’t want to have to take out their navel ring. Good grief. There’s always something.

Building Confidence

“Confidence is the inner knowledge that when you are yourself and others are free to be themselves, everything works out for the best.” ~Brian D. Brio, Beyond Success; 15 secrets to Effective Leadership and Life Based on Legendary Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success.

One of the biggest struggles in coaching cheerleading is helping build confidence. It’s one thing to yell and kick along with five other people during practice, but doing it in front of several hundred people on a Friday night is quite another. Doing it in front of a couple hundred of your peers and classmates at a pep rally is even more nerve-wracking.

People have asked me how I can speak in public. Simple; I know that I’m going to make mistakes that people may laugh out eventually in life, so I may as well be prepared to laugh at myself. If I can do that, that I don’t have to be afraid of making a fool of myself. Now I’m not charming or funny enough to be very good at deliberately making people laugh, but I can manage to get in front of a big group of people and talk to them about just about whatever, without panicking.

Retired UCLA Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success is one tool that I’ve tried to use to help kids learn about teamwork and important character traits like work-ethic and confidence. Another one is Norman Vincent Peale’s classic The Power of Positive Thinking. A few years ago an author named Mary Lou Carney wrote an adaptation of Peale’s book for Teens. In The Power of Positive Thinking for Teens, she lays out ten simple steps for building your confidence:

1. See success- it’s an age-old coaching technique, you imagine, “visualize,” you picture yourself doing well. Starting with the end in mind, that’s all it is.

2. Nix negativity- sometimes this is the most difficult step. It means not letting yourself talk yourself out of being able to do whatever it is that you have to do. Force yourself to not be doubtful.

3. Don’t build obstacles- you’ve heard the old saying, “you’re your own worst enemy?” It can be true, so be on your guard against self-sabotage. Don’t look for excuses to fail, don’t make things harder than they have to be.

4. Be yourself- That’s all you can be, don’t try to pretend to be something else, lay it all out there and if they like you, great, if they don’t, oh well, their loss, don’t take it too personally. This is what my opening quote is about. Just know that when you are yourself and allow be themselves, everything will work out for the best.

5. Know your strengths- Many coaches have you list your assents and then focus on what your good at, not what you’re not good at. A lot of times that will compensate for your weaknesses. It’s also helpful just to list and review your strengths in order to remind yourself that you’re at least good for SOMETHING.

6. Know yourself- this is not the same as #5. This one could be written as, “know your limits.” If you know what your values are and, yes, what your weaknesses are, you can look for ways to maintain a balance, delegate out responsibilities, or ask for support.

7. Use the antidote (Philippians 4:13)- Memorize and recite this verse at least ten times a day. “I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.

8. Aim high- If you shoot for nothing, you’ll hit it every time. If you shoot for the moon- even if you miss, you’ll reach the stars.

9. Put yourself in God’s hands- We don’t know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future. Sometimes all you can do is to do your best and let God do the rest, also known as “let go and let God.”

10. Be unbeatable

trying to remain cheerful

I've seen other cheerleading websites, but I’ve only ran across one other cheerleading “blog” while surfing the web. And mine is the only Cheer Coach’s “blog.” A blog is a web-log, a journal or diary kept on the internet. Most of the more famous blogs are political. There are now so many of them that you hear TV news pundits talking about a “blogosphere.”

Of course, last I knew the only other male cheer coaches in Iowa was one guy at a community college and some guys who own an exclusive Cheerleading gym outside of Des Moines. I’ve been posting a lot of entries lately, if you’d like to take a look at it, click on over to http://cheercoach.blogspot.com.

Before you say, he has too much time on his hands, keep in mind that that a blog isn’t something that you have to put a lot of work into like most websites, A blog is a free service and they basically give you a template and a program to add to your web browser so that all you have to do is type and click.

It’s been an interesting season so far. Iowa allows each high school 8 cheerleaders during football season and 6 for basketball. In a perfect world, you’d have 2 Freshmen, 2 Sophomores, 2 Juniors, and 2 Seniors. In a perfect world, you’d hold tryouts in the Spring, get 12 or 20 candidates and choose the best 8. Then you’d go to a camp or clinic during the summer and maybe even get a few practices in before school even started.

I’m here to tell you, there is no perfect world. Last year I had 5 Seniors and one Freshman. We had tryout practices but only had 4 candidates. We had tryouts, but 2 of the 4 candidates chickened out.

We were supposed to have ordered new uniforms last Spring, but we didn’t even have a squad until school started about a month ago.

I had 5 cheerleaders, 2 of which are TOTAL rookies, and only 4 ½ uniforms, 2 bags, 4 sets of pom pons, and only one megaphone (guilt-guilt & shame former cheerleaders!). Did I mention that 3 of those 4 ½ uniforms fit really bad? And we haven’t had time to think about new uniforms because we’ve hardly practiced so we hardly know any chants. (Let alone cheers and stunts).

Nikki is the skinniest kid on squad... a 25 inch waist but we STILL can't get a uniform that fits her. We need to do something about it- parent in the stands were even complaining about how her navel shows. I don't think I've had a 25 inch waist since I was say 8 yrs old.

We're kind of a motley crew, but at least there's a squad. Underclassmen all the way.
3 Sophomores; one was on Varsity last year, one was on Junior High for a brief time, and another that was on junior high for two years- she even got 3rd place at the Iowa State Fair for Gymnastics!

Then there are the 2 Freshmen; complete rookies to the sport of cheerleading, one of whom is pretty cynical and pretty stubborn.

Several kids have approached me and told me that they’re planning on coming out for basketball season. AWESOME- although, if I want uniforms that fit, should I wait till after tryouts in November to measure & order? Of course, I had several kids tell me that they were coming out last Spring but they didn’t.

One of my rookies must have felt alienated, like she didn’t have any friends on the squad, because she went to work and recruited two (for THIS season). One’s quiet as a mouse and while the other cheered last year in Junior High, is painfully shy and doesn’t want to perform in front of the whole student body at pep rallies.

That’s Varsity. Junior High is about as complicated- 3 out of my 5 Junior High cheerleaders are now ineligible because of poor grades, and one of the 2 left has a broken ankle, so she’ll be on the Disabled list for about 6 weeks.

Guess how she did it- she was watching a cheer competition on ESPN and decided to practice some chants at home.

Then there are the three seventh graders; THERE'RE SO TINY! I guess I got too used the almost-all-Senior Varsity squad I had last year. This group really makes me feel old though, because when I first came to Boyer Valley 5 years ago, I taught them Art as Second-Graders!

Loud and proud

March 7-13, 2005 is National Cheerleading Week. According to USA Today. There are about 3 million cheerleaders in the US today. Varsity Spirit, largest of about 50 cheerleading companies, made almost $150 million last year. American Cheerleader magazine debuted in 1994 and now has a circulation over 200,000.

Tommy Lee Jones recently stared in “Man of the House,” a movie where he plays a Texas Ranger charged with protecting members of the University of Texas cheer squad who had witnessed a murder. Its cheesy, contrived and predictable, but still cute. Of course, I may appreciate it more than most. I’ve been coaching Cheer since 1993. I know what its like to be trapped in a van with six giggling teenage girls for hours at a time.

The first organized cheers were chanted at Princeton football games in the 1880’s. The first official Yell squad was at the University of Minnesota in the 1990’s. In the roaring 20’s squads started adding pyramids and tumbling. Cheerleading was a predominantly male sport until all the men went off to war in the 1940’s.

Cheerleading is purely American. Think about it. Baseball evolved from Cricket, Football evolved from Rugby. Only Basketball and Cheerleading are purely American originals.

In High School, cheerleading is about school spirit. College cheerleading is all about stunts and athletics. Unfortunately, the cheerleaders for professional football and basketball seem to be more about glamour and swimsuit calendars. Kind of like how respectable high school and college wrestling are as sports, but Pro-Wrestling is pretty much a corny, violent soap opera.

Club squads, which are not affiliated with schools have become very popular recently. Performing and competing against other cheer squads has become more important to these “all-star” squads as a sport in their own right then raising the spirit at football or basketball games.

The National Federation of State High School Spirit Associations’ official rules book states the first duty of Cheerleading is to “boost school spirit, promote good sportsmanship, and develop good positive crowd involvement Cheerleaders are in a position of great influence, therefore” …"high standards of conduct are essential. Cheerleaders can become the schools most effective student leaders.”

As a coach, I tend to agree with this philosophy. I take it even further. Cheerleading can be a tremendous opportunity to develop important qualities in yourself, your squad-mates and your classmates that will help you throughout your life and in every aspect of your life. The most obvious one might be fitness and fitness habits. I personally think that the most important ones are service, confidence, and positivity.

Service is vital to Cheer and to leadership. You would be amazed as a football or basketball player at the difference that a good cheer squad and crowd noise can make. We are there for them. Cheerleaders shouldn’t be self-focused, we should be focused on others. The ball-team athletes will tell you, there’s something powerful about playing with a lot of noise. Cheerleaders can make a lot of noise, but their job is to get the crowd to make noise, to lead them in cheers.
When the stands are packed and chanting in unison, its electric. It really can help the players, it literally can help determine the outcome of the game. If you’ve been to any of the Lady Bobcat basketball tournaments, you know its true.

Cheerleaders would also be amazed at how much young children watch them, imitate them, and want to be like them. Service could be small thing like picking up trash in the stands after a game, being quiet in the team bus, letting players get on and off the bus before you, or big things, like donating lots of time or money to some charity, church or community activities.
Either way, you can have a lot more influence by helping others than by ordering people around. If you take the focus off yourself and focus on helping others. You’ll be surprised and how good you feel, and how important you become. Perhaps, most importantly, you’ll have a lot less conflict with others if you’re not always trying to get your own way.

Standing in front of hundreds of people, jumping, shouting, and chanting aren’t things that come easy. Leading a pep-rally, speaking your opinion, standing up for what’s right, making new friends, engaging a stranger in conversation, holding up under peer-pressure, saying no, knowing that you have strengths and abilities to handle any situation- these are all things that you can develop by being a cheerleader. Trust in others and trust in yourself. What could Cheering offer that is more valuable than confidence?

Positivity is the next thing that Cheer offers. Think about that old saying “If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.” People who look for the good in any situation and any individual can usually find it. Once found, it can be used to make things better for everybody. Too often, too many of us tend to be critical of one another and ourselves. That kind of negativity is unproductive.

Optimism is more effective, progressive and productive. Certainly life isn’t always easy, cheerleaders don’t have to be in denial about real life, but if you’re going to encourage others, you can’t focus on what’s discouraging.
Like the old saying says; “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!” Knowing that no matter how bad it gets, you can still get through it, move on, and learn, even gain from the pain- how awesome is that?

Some people think that they could never be cheerleaders, they’re not “perky” enough. Don’t think of it as being saccharine or Pollyanna, think of it as being positive. That’s part of the American character, that’s looking forward instead of feeling sorry for your self or criticizing and blaming the people around you. That’s leadership.

Don't look down

It’s a hard lesson to learn, but cheerleaders learn it every year, usually in the searing heat and glare of the late summer sun at camp, long before the school year and the football season begin. The lesson is, Don’t look down. Put another way, attitude determines altitude.

Pilots know this. If you raise the aircraft’s nose up, the plane flies up. Cheerleaders have to learn this too; where your eyes go, your body tends to follow. If you look straight ahead at the crowd, you’ll keep your balance, look down, even for an instant, and your body will begin to lean.

Cheer is not the only sport in which this principle applies. A basketball shooter doesn’t watch the ball, to make a basket, they have to focus on the hoop. Golfers can try to follow their ball after they swing, but at that instant they follow through, they’d better be concentrating on where they want the ball to go if they want to avoid a wicked slice.

A few weeks ago PBS host Allan Alda talked to University of Arizona scientists about this on his show, Scientific American. It seems that whether it’s a tennis serve or a volleyball serve or a hunter after a pheasant, the principal is the same- where you look, there you go. Don’t look at the ball, look at where you want it to go, don’t look at the bird, aim at where you expect it to be the moment your shell reaches the same point in space.

If you don’t want to fall, don’t look down. Principles are things that can usually be applied in other areas of life. That’s why sports are good for kids, they learn valuable life lessons without even realizing it- a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Seems there have even been studies that suggest that while you’re walking down the street, if you tend to constantly be looking at the ground, your mood sours, whereas if you look up more, you’ll naturally become more upbeat, less tense, even happy. One theory is that when you look ahead or up, more light can make it into your eyes. In the fall and winter when days get short and clouds hide the sun or people stay inside all day, some people begin to suffer symptoms of what doctors call seasonal affective disorder (SAD). So looking up can literally, physiologically keep you “up.”

Let’s use our “don’t look down” principle as an analogy for other things.

Take people. If we expect the worse, they probably won’t disappoint us. If we’re critical of them or defensive toward them, they’ll treat us as we’ve treated them. If we look for even one good thing in them and appreciate it, we may even bring out the best in them.

Take politics. If a candidate focuses only on what’s wrong about his opponent, he or she only turns off the voter. America is fundamentally an optimistic place, voters want to know what the candidate’s hope and plans and qualifications are. Ever notice how when one person is looking up, everyone else starts looking up? We want to see what they see. “What is that? What are they looking at?” It’s compulsive. That’s leadership.

Take work. If you focus on how hard it is or how unpleasant, it only makes it more unpleasant. Time drags on when you watch the clock. If you focus on a goal or your accomplishments, it’s much easier.

Take business. If you focus on your obstacles, expenses or irate customers, you’re dooming yourself. If you focus on trying to build relationships, and on trying to provide your customers with what they want and need, you’re bound to succeed.

Take religion. There’s Law and Gospel, right? The Law shows us that this world is messed up because people are basically selfish and short sighted. What does that get us? It’s meant to humble us and make us realize that we need God. Great, but if we never stop focusing on how bad we are and how bad everybody is, we’ll never get on with living. The Gospel is the good news that God loves us even though we’re selfish and short-sighted. It shows us that He wants to have a relationship with us and He wants to help us be selfless and broaden our vision.

Take any problem we have or all of life for that matter. Take society in general. If we insist on always being critical or negative, where does that get us. Nowhere, stuck, stagnant, digging downward. But if we look forward or look up, guess what- we’ll at least stand firm and tall, at best, we’ll start moving forward.

Many a cheerleader who has the bruises to prove that “don’t look down” is one of the most important lessons anyone can ever learn.

I was a teenage werewolf

"How did you ever end up coaching Cheerleading?"

Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that one. Speaking as a Journalism teacher, if I wasn’t the male Cheer Coach, I’d probably encourage my students to interview him. I’d think there’s a story there, it certainly is a novelty.

When I attended the Iowa Cheer Coaches Association conference in Ames a couple of years ago, I was one of only two male coaches, and the other guy was coach at a junior college.

There has really only been one time, to my knowledge, that someone gave me a hard time about it. It was in L.A. An Athletic Director at another Christian school approached me, assuming I was one of the football coaches, to let me know something about that days game. When I explained to him that I wasn’t the football coach, I was the cheer coach, he laughed and made a homophobic joke and sympathetically asked me how I "got stuck" with cheerleading.

When I told him that I didn’t feel like I had been "stuck" with it and that I actually enjoyed it, he didn’t quite know what to do with me. He awkwardly back-stepped out of the conversation and made his way to the "real" coaches.

"So, how did you come to coach something like cheerleading?" I hear you ask. Alright, I’ll tell you.

I wasn’t ever particularly good at sports as a kid. Freshman year of college, I happened to be in the student union when some of the girls on the cheer squad came looking for guys to be "yell leaders." There were only four of them and they needed more to help them build pyramids.

I was full of school spirit and figured it was a great way to meet girls, so "what the heck." That was just one season, freshman year. My wife Bethany, on the other hand, didn’t cheer in college, but she did for years in high school.

The first year that we taught at Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High School, Bethany was expected to coach both junior high and varsity cheer. It didn’t take long for us to see that it was unreasonable to expect a rookie teacher to be expected to coach two sports simultaneously. When we approached our principal with the dilemma, he was more resourceful than we had anticipated. He had remembered from my file that I had cheered in college.

At first I was very reluctant, but we reasoned that Bethany and her high school cheerleaders could help me train my junior high cheerleaders. Besides we welcomed the additional stipend, meager as it was.

I have to tell you, if teaching is both one of the most difficult and yet most rewarding professions, coaching is even more so. You can’t get to know a student very well once a day during a fifty minute period alongside twenty or more other students, you can get to know them fairly well when you have just six or eight of them for a couple hours every single day. My hope and prayer is that by coaching, I can make a greater difference in the lives of a few young people.

I coached junior high cheer for about five years. After two or three, Bethany got out of coaching and took on other responsibilities as L. A. Lutheran’s Spiritual Life Director. No doubt, a step toward becoming a counselor, like she is today. During that time they went through several different Varsity coaches. I’d like to think that for a while, some of my junior high squads performed better than their high school counterparts. Eventually, they asked me if I would take over the varsity squad and assigned the junior high to a new rookie teacher.

I coached two more years in LA and I considered it a ministry, not just an after school activity. We prayed before and after games and once a week we had a meeting/Bible study kind of the way I imagine a Fellowship of Christian Athletes "huddle" might have at a public school. I wanted to be a "coach," and not merely a "sponsor," so I made every effort to work hard every practice and improve as much as we could. Our squads attended camps and attended workshops and combed through magazines and videos for ideas.

I’m honored to say that the cheer coach at Lutheran High in L. A. today cheered for me as a junior high student and for both Bethany and I as a high school student. It’s a kick to exchange email with her about what our squads are doing.

This is my third year coaching cheer at Boyer Valley and my ninth year coaching altogether. There are ups and downs, and anytime you’re dealing with teenagers, let alone teenage girls there are days when you feel like you’re going crazy. But it’s still a lot of fun, and as rewarding as ever. I may not be the best coach that’s ever been around the sport, and my squads may never get on ESPN, but I like what I do.

School spirit is important. Supporting the other teams, coaches, and athletes at our schools is important, and I’d like to think that being a positive adult male influence for young women is too.